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Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton 93, Texas Southern 70

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[Box Score]

Key Stats:

Creighton owns 36 dunks in five games this year (three games in Italy, the exhibition vs. Upper Iowa, and tonight), compared to 29 total in 33 regular-season games last winter. You want one stat that encapsulates the difference in athleticism on this team versus last year? There you go.

Need one more? The most fast-break points Creighton scored in any game a year ago was 11. On Saturday, they had THIRTY.

Standout Performance:

In becoming just the third Bluejay in the last 20 years to start the opener as a true freshman (joining Ryan Sears and Doug McDermott), Khyri Thomas set the bar awfully high for himself. He poured in 18 points on 8-11 shooting, including three thunderous dunks — two of which came on back-to-back possessions. The first was a steal and breakaway dunk:

and the second was a putback where he simply blew past his defender.

Thomas’ 18 points are the most by a Creighton freshman in their debut since P’Allen Stinnett had 23 in 2007, a season where he would go on to win MVC Freshman of the Year honors. If you’re curious, Doug McDermott had 16 in his debut.

Coming into the season, Thomas was seen as a player who could contribute right away because of his defensive prowess while he worked to improve his shot. Based on Saturday night, his offensive ability is already pretty damn good. And his defense is every bit as good as advertised. Officially, he had two steals, but it will be interesting to watch the film of this game because my hunch is there were eight or nine other instances where he tipped or deflected a ball. He’s just so active, and so disruptive, and such a menace, and he’s only a freshman.

Coach Mac told our Matt DeMarinis after the game that “The exciting thing is he’s so far away from his ceiling that it’s going to be fun for our fans to watch him grow up in front of their eyes, because I think he’s going to be a very special player.” He’s already a guy I’m very excited to watch the rest of this season; the thought of what he might become in three or four years is almost too exciting to consider.

Recap & Analysis:

With 9:19 to play in the first half, Creighton clung to a 19-16 lead. Then Cole Huff drained a three, Khyri Thomas hit back-to-back threes on consecutive possessions, and the Jays led 28-18. Moments later, an old-fashioned three-point play from Maurice Watson pushed the lead out to 31-20, and the Jays held a double-digit lead the rest of the way.

Over the final 10 minutes of the half, which was the deciding stretch of the game, newcomers scored 20 of the 27 points. They did it with three-pointers, sure, but they also put a different spin on the “Let It Fly” slogan with a flurry of dunks — in traffic, on the fastbreak, over the top of defenders — that was unlike any Bluejay team I’ve ever seen.

That athleticism showed up on defense, too, where they corralled eight steals that they turned into 30 fastbreak points. Thomas was the key to all of that, obviously; it’s been a while since the Jays had a guard that could contribute in so many facets of the game, making him a difference-maker even on nights when he isn’t shooting well.

A 27-9 run over the first 9-1/2 minutes of the second half ran the lead out to 73-39, for all intents and purposes ending the game. Fastbreak points in that run were keyed by Thomas’ harassing defense, as the clips above showcased, but also by Maurice Watson, who pushed the tempo every chance he had and then either found open shooters or took it right to the hole and scored himself. It seems like hyperbole to claim he’s the perfect point guard for this system, but he is. He plays fast but under control. He shoots well enough that the defense has to respect his jump shot, meaning other, better shooters aren’t double-teamed. He has the ability to break down a defense off the dribble and create. And when all else fails, he can penetrate the defense and score at the rim himself. He’s going to score a ton of points, he’s going to dish out a ton of assists, and the Bluejays are going to win a ton of games with him in the lineup.

The competition will get better very quickly, with a game at #15 Indiana in five days, but a lot of things they did well had nothing to do with Texas Southern and that’s encouraging. Steals, forcing tempo, making high-percentage shots at the rim, these are things that should serve them well no matter the opponent, and no matter whether they’re red-hot from three point range or not. They scored 93 points while making only 10 threes (35%). On nights when their shots from deep are falling at a 40-45% (or better) clip, something that you know will happen with this group from time to time?

Look out below.

They Said It:

“It all starts in practice. Coach D-Rock — or, sorry, Coach DeVries — gets on us. I practice we don’t start off with real slow energy, like we did tonight, where they hit back-to-back threes and then another three. I was just like, I need to step it up because I guess I’m the defender on the team. So I was going to bring the energy and hope everybody else follows, and they did tonight.” -Khyri Thomas on 1620AM Postgame

“With a lot of new guys, I think our perspective on the zone is a lot different. Everybody’s from every different place, so everybody thinks they’re in the right spot when they’re really in the wrong spot. But tonight, we did it the Creighton way, and it was effective tonight. We were everywhere, had our arms up, in the right spot at the right moment. I don’t want to say I don’t like pressing because Coach Mac is probably going to hate this (laughs), but it’s pretty tiring when you’re at the top of it. You can kind of relax when you fall back into the zone, but once you relax I say OK, it’s time to pick it back up again. That’s when I find a deflection, or a steal.” -Khyri Thomas on 1620AM Postgame

“This is the most energy I’ve ever had to assert in a game. Obviously, this is a different level. At the military academy, or in high school, it was always the same, I was always in. Here, it’s like, you’re in, but you have to be effective. In high school, you could walk around a little bit, and trot at times, but when Coach Mac sees that here he yells ‘Run, Thomas, Run!’ I’m like, ‘OK, here I go!’ and I just run. (laughs)” -Khyri Thomas on 1620AM Postgame

“Coach Mac just told us in the locker room that we have five games in 11 days here. He really stressed to get some rest, don’t get in the weight room hard, but stay a little bulked up, and then everybody get treatment. Ice baths, stretch whenever you can, drink a lot of water. Stay healthy so you can be out there for this stretch, as the same consistent player.” -Khyri Thomas on 1620AM Postgame

“Well, the defensive effort the last four minutes were hard on my eyes (laughs). But after we settled in, after the first three possessions, we had talked so much to the guys about the need to guard the dribble that I think we were a little late getting to some shooters those first three possessions. They knocked down jump shots, to their credit. But then I thought we settled in, we played very well defensively the rest of the first half, and then were able to create separation at the start of the second half. We generated some things with our defense that helped that. At the end we didn’t play defense at all, though. But we made some good strides defensively. It’s a hard team for us to play against because, except for the six minutes that they played the big boy, they played without a center. Their power forwards and centers that they played were more like small forwards. So you have to make a decision, do you switch, because some of them pick-and-pop it well. We put Geoff and Zach and Martin, and Toby in particular, in situations they’re not going to be in a lot. That’s a negative to playing a team like this that’s so small. But there was a lot of good things that came out of it.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I wanted to see the zone tonight. I think we do a pretty good job of playing zone — (Thomas) is so long at the front of it, that it’s really hard to just bust it and beat it that way. The negative of it is that it shortens the game, and then there aren’t quite as many possessions as I’d like to have. That’s why we got out of it tonight, we felt like we could get a little bit more flow without it. There were 35 possessions in the first half, and 40 in the second half. We’d like to be close to that 80 possessions per game mark if we could. But Texas Southern didn’t beat the press and come down and take quick shots, either. We were trying to bait them into doing that, but they didn’t really do it. Our coverage out of it was pretty good. And (Thomas), for every steal he gets, he gets about five deflections. He’s very active, defensively both on the press and on the ball. I like what I saw out of our zone, I want to see a little more of it, I want to continue to evaluate it for situations like tonight. Close game, we’re down five or six, (Watson) gets his second foul with five minutes left in the half, I’d like to leave him in the game without him being attacked. So can we get in a zone and protect him a little? That’s part of the reason that with the new rules we’ve used it a lot more than in the past.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Malik Albert took care of the basketball. He had three assists and no turnovers. But he was a little back on his heels, and wasn’t quite as aggressive as he needs to be. I think he’s, in the early going, really trying to play without making a mistake rather than just going out and playing. And he’s playing a different brand of basketball than he’s ever played before. I thought he was OK. I thought Tyler Clement did a nice job as well. We can use (Zierden) there some too. We didn’t tonight, but once we get Ronnie back, especially, where we don’t need Isaiah and James as much at that small forward spot, we can use Isaiah at the point some as well. I’m not too worried about our backups there. Obviously I’d like to have Mo on the floor for 30-plus minutes a game. We’ll try to buy him some rest around the timeouts. But he got another foul in the backcourt tonight. He just can’t do that. You can’t get one 50 or 60 feet from the basket. Then you’re going to be put in situations where you’re going to get some other ones.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Isaiah’s disappointed, because he feels like he missed some shots that he’s been making in practice. He’s been shooting the ball great in practice. He didn’t shoot it as good tonight. But he had four assists and no turnovers, 15 points, solid defense where he was in the right spot doing the right things, communicating when he sees things on the floor. As I told him before the game, it’s really good to have him back. I’m proud of him that he’s worked his way back to this point, and hopefully it stays that way, because he deserves an injury-free season. I hope he gets it.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Cole has been struggling shooting in practice. So we went to him to start both halves, ran some isolations for him, just so he knew the level of confidence we have in him. Cole’s capable of scoring in bunches. And he can hit tough shots. Those turnaround fadeaway jumpers are not easy shots. He’s spent a lot of time working on that. But besides the offense, I thought he was aggressive on the defensive glass, he did some good things there, and he’s improving defensively on a daily basis.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“We’re going to have to try to go easy the next week or so, with five games in 11 days. We need a good mental practice tomorrow, and we’ll get the guys in the ice baths, we’ll make sure their recovery is going the right direction as we prepare for Tuesday. It’s a tough stretch, that’s a lot of games in a short period of time. It played out the way we wanted it to, tonight at least. I wish Zach wouldn’t have had the foul trouble and could have played a few more minutes, but other than that some guys got some quality minutes and we’ll get some good film to watch. That will help us learn where guys are at and where they need to improve. That’s very valuable this time of the year.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I like this group, they’re a fun group of guys, and I hope our fans enjoyed it. I appreciate the great crowd tonight, but this has been such a fun group to coach. They get along, they don’t really care who gets the credit, somebody gets hot they’re going to get them the ball, and they share the ball extremely well. We’ve got a lot of room for growth on both ends of the floor, that’s what’s exciting to me, so we’ll get back to work tomorrow and get ready for UT-San Antonio.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

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